There's a story about a man who left a rigid fundamentalist community after twenty years. When someone asked him what finally made him walk out the door, he said, "I realized I'd met the same person in four different religions."

He wasn't talking about a specific individual. He was talking about a type.

Eric Hoffer saw it coming. In 1951, the San Francisco dockworker and self-taught philosopher published The True Believer, a slim book that remains one of the most unsettling works of social...

The honest answer from someone who loves living abroad but would not recommend it to everyone

Let’s start with the fantasy version.

You sell everything. You board the plane. You land somewhere warmer, cheaper, slower, and more beautiful than the life you left behind. Your rent drops. Your stress drops. Your blood pressure drops. You learn to drink coffee in plazas. You discover fruit you can’t pronounce. You become, in your own mind at least, a more interesting person.

That version exists.

I know...

There is a woman I know who spent the first thirty-five years of her life inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She served in auxiliaries, raised her son in the faith, kept a year's supply of food storage in her basement, and did all the things faithful members do. Then, after a long and painful faith transition, she left.

She will tell you it was the hardest thing she ever did.

She will also tell you, if you catch her in a reflective mood, that she may have made life a little...